Title changes, language questions

I've read WP's article on editing, but it says nothing on changing the title. How do you change the title? I mean, I saw Long Horn Cotton, I've checked the genealogies, and it's Long Hom. Some of the language headings are incorrect too - especially the Adûnaic ones. And do we need a clearer entry on Rohirric, because this is Old English and Rohirian (the word Tolkien used for it) mixed together... Ederchil 07:13, 13 January 2008 (EST)

Hello there Ederchil, first I wanted to thank you for your recent edits, it is always nice to have a new face around and you've been doing a great job. There should be a move button next to History and you can move the article to the correct title, I've gone ahead and fixed the Long Hom Cotton article. We usually try and bring up the move on the talk page before moving, but for obvious spelling mistakes such as that one it is okay to just move it without asking.

One thing I always forget as well, when we want to link to Categories we have to add a colon in front, like [[:Category:Rohirric words|Rohirric]], otherwise it doesn't display the text and just adds the article to said category.

I agree with both of your statements on Adûnaic and Rohirric words, if you can try to cite your sources that would be great and we can eliminate any errors. Thanks for your input and let me know if I can help with anything at all. --Hyarion 14:18, 13 January 2008 (EST)

Ugluk fanfiction

Hyar: i'm sorry to accuse you like this but a friend of mine noticed what appears to be some extreme extrepolation in the Ugluk article. I had a check through the history and noticed that it all changed to that status with your rewrite. Now i know i dont know everything about the texts but what are your sources for Ugluk's company meeting Gollum, along with a preliminary meeting with grishnakh and specific information on how Ugluk's company came about? It's certainly not anywhere in the actual book Lord of the Rings. Dr Death 13:48, 17 January 2008 (EST)

Don't be sorry! The sooner we cite everything in the articles the better. At the bottom I listed the other reference (aside from The Two Towers) as "The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, "The Departure of Boromir,", "The Uruk-hai", this is indeed where the content you brought up came from. I'd definitely recommend this book if you don't have it already. It looks like Hammond and Scull found this information in a "Scheme" manuscript which is an unpublished timeline of events. I know little of this manuscript so I'll do some research on it, however I have the utmost respect for Hammond and Scull. I've been holding off on citations since hopefully by the end of the month, next month at the latest, we should be running on an upgraded version of MediaWiki which will allow us to install the same citation extension which Wikipedia uses. --Hyarion 14:05, 17 January 2008 (EST)

Fair enoughski, however the question does arise: 'is it canon?' I think given the confusion that has arisen, it might be worth including a sort of 'other versions of the legendarium' or 'greater works' section in which that information is included and independently assessed since i dont think a footnote will suffice for what the casual reader (and even the dedicated reader: i really was miffed by it) might at first think to be a factual error. Dr Death 04:17, 18 January 2008 (EST)

Questions on proper form (besides proper comma usage)

Articles before proper names of Ages; should it be "in Second Age Numenor was really neat," or more like "in the Third Age the Hobbits were smoking?" It's given that particular dates within any certain age do not need a definite article (in F.A. 42 the elves all sailed the ocean blue) but I'm not sure which way I should format the other. Also, is there any way to flag articles that are in the process of major rewrites so that we are not doubling efforts? Lastly, if I just happened to be a great gift giver, would you and eight of your friends each want to recieve a nice piece of jewelry? Singe 00:38, 28 January 2008 (EST)

"the Third Age" is the correct usage vs. simply "Third Age" and yes, you don't need to use "the" if you are stating a specific year of the age. Hm, flagging articles that are in the process of being rewritten is a good idea, until we create a template for such a notice, feel free to just mention so on the article's talk page. I think I would have to double check the possession of the jewelry didn't cause me to turn into a wraith and become controlled by a dark lord before accepting such a thing (sounds an awful lot like an engagement ring...) --Hyarion 00:58, 28 January 2008 (EST)

A picture my-bad

Could you delete this: Image:20070902204908!Arda.gif? I re-uploaded it with a better name. -- Ederchil 15:24, 8 February 2008 (EST)

Two Trees

It looks like Ederchil beat me to it. If you ever want to add images to a category just add something like this to the bottom of the page: [[Category:Images by Artist name]] --Hyarion 17:46, 9 February 2008 (EST)

Yeah, I figured that out right after I asked you. I have just finished categorizing my recent uploads and linking their summaries with related articles. -Ingwe

Main Page

Isn't it time for a new featured article? Or a new quote? These are on forever. Because of the new Hobbit movie, maybe Bilbo Baggins? -- Ederchil 09:32, 11 February 2008 (EST)

Definitely, one option is to have the article/quote be random from a pre-chosen list of options, and the other is to vote on a new article/quote every week or month. The difficult part with voting is we need to have at least a fair amount of people voting, we might have almost enough editors for that at the moment so maybe we should start working on the process, I'll see if we can launch something with the new skin. --Hyarion 18:13, 13 February 2008 (EST)

Actually, when I read the article after I posted, I noticed "stay tuned for April 17th". How outdated. -- Ederchil 09:19, 14 February 2008 (EST)

Pics on TolkienGateway

Hello Hyarion, we from Ardapedia are wondering what type of license you use for pictures in TolkienGateway, do you ask for permission from each drawer him/herself? Do you use the common GNU-License like in Wikipedia? We would really like to get and add some new pictures on Ardapedia, but we strictly use licenses (like GNU, PD, and in some cases "copyrighted pics with the permission of the author"), thanks for your answer, --Sinthoras 11:05, 13 February 2008 (EST)

Hey there Sinthoras. One thing we definitely need to work on adding is licenses to all the images, as the licenses vary. We try to contact all of the artists for permission before uploading any of their work and so far I think everyone has stated as long as we aren't for-profit, credit them, and link back to their website, etc. then it's fine, we've yet to have someone not allow the images to be displayed. When we don't hear back or are unable to contact/find an artist we upload the images as "Fair use". I would recommend contacting the artists and asking for permission if you can as they tend to want to know who is using their images and I don't know of any that are available under the GNU FDL. --Hyarion 18:21, 13 February 2008 (EST)

Epessi and Epithets

Is there any policy on including these in the article's title? It's obviously the case when dealing with disambigs, like Beren Erchamion, Túrin Turambar or Dior Eluchil. However, it's unclear in the case of the kings of Rohan: compare Brytta Léofa and Fréaláf Hildeson with Théoden (not "Théoden Ednew"), and Éomer (not "Éomer Éadig"). Nor is it the case with Borondir ("Borondir Udalraph"). IMO it would look more "professional" if we would include such epithets and epessi in the title. -- Ederchil 13:07, 18 February 2008 (EST)

Good question. I don't have a problem with adding them, as obviously we would include redirects from the common name. Up until this point we have tried to just use whatever name was mentioned the most in Tolkien's text as this is what the most people would be familiar with. My only concern would be it would turn a large percentage of links to Théoden, Éomer, etc. into links to redirects, and we probably don't want to bother with typing [[Théoden Ednew|Théoden]]. It also might add, if only minimally, some confusion for those who aren't familiar with "Théoden Ednew" or "Éomer Éadig". However these aren't huge negatives and if everyone else thinks it would be a good idea then I'm all for it. --Hyarion 16:46, 18 February 2008 (EST)

Translations

I was disussing this with someone: there's apparently no good place where the names of all the characters and places are in translations of the book. I only found this on Dutch Wikipedia (presumably, other language wiki's have lists too). We already have such a list at Frodo, should we include such lists at other characters as well?
Also, did you know this? Definately worth some research. -- Ederchil 04:46, 26 February 2008 (EST)

I think it would be worth noting the translations of the character's name in the article, and I definitely think an article which lists all of the translations would be a great idea. What should we call the article, "Translations"? The Harry Potter book is hilarious and I hadn't realized it was a rip off of The Hobbit until now, while probably not worth its own article, we should probably find some place to put that information. --Hyarion 18:16, 28 February 2008 (EST)

What we could also do is make separate pages for all the translations (with a cat:Translations), including information on publishing date, company, translator, and characters. -- Ederchil 10:04, 29 February 2008 (EST)

I guess it just depends on how much of a conflict there is between different translations of the same name by different translators into the same language. My idea would be to have a universal article such as Translations that has a table with them all. One thing we definitely need is, not necessarily an article for every foreign edition, but at least one article for every language for now, so something like Chinese editions of The Lord of the Rings seems logical. --Hyarion 18:42, 3 March 2008 (EST)

Referencing

I would appreciate much if you could turn on the <ref> tag. It would be nice to add where the details were found when writing/rewriting an article.
-- nikolet 00:42, 27 February 2008 (EST)

Just me bursting in Hyar's talk: I usually ref with <sup>[[#References|1]]</sup>. It's a lot of typing, but gets more or less the required result. We should really get a standard referencing, btw. I think this (Narfil's, I believe) should be standard. -- Ederchil 04:34, 27 February 2008 (EST)

Well, we may as well discuss the templates for referencing then. I prefer to make citations up to the footnote # or para #, when I edit. How about we have a discussion on the said topic on the irc server, this Saturday? We may as well discuss the finer points of templates such as this and this -- nikolet 20:37, 27 February 2008 (EST)

I can't seem to find where we had the earlier discussion on this but for now we should follow Narfil's lead and just use the reference system as used in Denethor II, but as soon as we upgrade the MediaWiki engine (during my Spring break is the goal) we'll be using the same ref system that Wikipedia uses. --Hyarion 18:46, 3 March 2008 (EST)

I've made an doc of what I think is a good way to reference (which was what I originally meant), which should bring some uniformity in referencing. The current system is vague, and looking at some entries (Constellations, for one) not very well followed. I can mail it to you if you're interested, or post it on my own namespace ( User:Ederchil/Referencing or something). -- Ederchil 05:47, 6 March 2008 (EST)

Polystone statues

Is there really any reason for so many pages to exist solely for the advertisment of statues from the Peter Jackson films? It seems, well...stupid. However, I didn't feel it would be prudent to just delete them without asking. CharlesMartel 21:59, 21 March 2008 (EDT)CharlesMartel

Hey there Charles. There really isn't any site that includes details of the vast number of collectibles relating to J.R.R. Tolkien's works, and we wanted some place where a fan could go to find all the information in one place. The statues category has a long way to go and eventually along with our calendars and books categories we hope to list every collectible that has been produced. We also plan on having an article for all of the games that have been created which relate to Tolkien as well. If in the future the community feels the presence of the collectibles/games/etc hurt the lore articles then it is possible we could separate them more and move the articles to a different namespace or sub-wiki. Right now they are definitely a lower priority but as many fans have shown an interest in collecting we wanted to make sure the information was available. Thanks for your input! --Hyarion 22:08, 21 March 2008 (EDT)

Screenplays

I was astounded to see that you have articles for the screenplays of Peter Jackson's LOTR and was wondering how you procured them. Seagrave 07:10, 23 March 2008 (EDT)

Yeah, me too, and since they're both orphaned AND dead-end, maybe we should link them to the movie articles. -- Ederchil 07:33, 23 March 2008 (EDT)

There's quite a few websites with the screenplays, I can't seem to recall exactly where I found them. I'm not sure if they are 100% accurate but they seem pretty close. As it is fairly common to see the scripts for sale at various places I'm guessing they were officially released at some point. I haven't seen any requests to have them taken down so I believe showcasing them constitutes as fair use. I definitely think it would be better if more people knew about them as a wiki is a fairly good medium for collaborative screenplay editing. --Hyarion 16:01, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

"Sauron or Morgoth?"?

A pity I never got to read that. The title sparked my curiosity, what was it about? -- Ederchil 04:35, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

MediaWiki knew you were going to ask that question :) so what you can do is click on the red link, and click "View or restore 2 deleted edits" and you can view the text. (or click here) --Hyarion 17:19, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

Perhaps you can, as admin ... I just got the edit page. And that link isn't working either! (Gives a "Permission Error".) ~ Earendilyon 17:40, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

D'oh, I forgot about that. I'll see if I can get that changed so anyone can see deleted edits. The article was a paragraph attempting to persuade people into believing Sauron was more powerful than Morgoth. --Hyarion 22:25, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

The Gateway is probably not the place to discuss Tolkien, but it can be argued, that Sauron at some point was indeed more powerful. IIRC, Tolkien stated something along those lines somewhere. ~ Earendilyon 04:19, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

New skin

I like the new skin... a soft, gentle colour blue. I prefer that over the white boxes. I do think the font size, especially in the infobox, could be little bit bigger, though. -- Ederchil 03:35, 15 April 2008 (EDT)

TV

Thanks for deleting "TV". I've come across that page in both my Dead-end and my Uncategorized cleanup without really knowing what to do with it. Similar case for "Reviews - Movies", the (now) oldest page. What do we do with that? Include Rottentomatoes at the corresponding movie articles and dump the rest? -- Ederchil 13:07, 26 April 2008 (EDT)

I still would like to do something related to "Television". Possibly listing the upcoming times at which a Tolkien-related film will be shown and linking to past televised videos, but the article was far below our standards. A specific article for reviews of all films is most likely not necessary as we can link to popular or lengthy fan-made reviews (which RT doesn't link to) on the respected film article. If the list becomes too long we can create a sub-page or an article for reviews of Film X, but a global article isn't going to be very useful and far too lengthy. --Hyarion 13:16, 26 April 2008 (EDT)

Admins on TG

I was checking for admins on this Wiki, and I didn't find any. Certainly a cadre of Admins is necessary for a this Wiki's development. You're doing a bang-up job, but I think you need some high-level support. As a moderate contributor, I think we should encourage people to make this kind of committment and get more deeply involved. --Theoden1 19:06, 29 April 2008 (EDT)

I do think we have a lower-than-most ratio of admins to users, but on wikis admins are more like janitors and there aren't many benefits aside from blocking users or protecting pages, something we do so little here that I don't think I've noticed much need for more janitors. I've also found in various communities the more moderators/admins the more drama there seems to be. That being said, I always have my eyes open and as TG grows we will definitely be adding more admins. --Hyarion 19:20, 29 April 2008 (EDT)

World map

As I could not find either an article or a talk page for the recently added interactive world map, I've decide to flag the gaffes (one major and one minor) that I found on it here.

Tolkien never studied at the Exeter College in Exeter, Devon, UK, since it only exists since 1970[1]. To judge from its website, it looks more like a senior highschool than a university college. The Exeter College[2][3] Tolkien studied at is part of Oxford University, and is thus in Oxford, England.

The map gives King Edward School[4], Birmingham, UK, in its present location in Kings Heath, but when Tolkien was a pupil there (a century ago now!) it was located right in the city centre, in New Street, in premises that no longer exist[5].

Thanks for catching those Mithrennaith! I've fixed the Exeter location and removed the King Edward's School marker for now until I can find an exact latitude/longitude of the old building. --Hyarion 21:46, 1 May 2008 (EDT)

Hey, all I need to fo is get on the bus to go to where it used to be. :) --KingAragorn 11:41, 5 June 2008 (EDT)

Categorizing people

I could do this via chat, but I'm here and you aren't and I'll probably forget, so...
On some other wikis, I noticed they categorize people by surname. Should we do this too? It's some work to change everything, but not that difficult, apparently it's just [[Category:Artists|Lee, Alan]]. Personally I think it looks more professional that way. -- Ederchil 06:11, 10 May 2008 (EDT)

I'm fine with that, I've been trying to make sure books and such are categorized "Silmarillion, The", etc. Alan Lee categorized in the L's will probably look more professional, the only problem I can see is navigating becomes slightly more confusing as the link still displays "Alan Lee" instead of "Lee, Allen", hopefully this is something we can modify in the near future however. --Hyarion 00:30, 11 May 2008 (EDT)

Template Transfers

I tried to copy over the Underconstruction template for Wiki, but I didn't quite get it right. We do need this template, badly. Would you look it over and get the wrinkles out? --Theoden1 09:00, 17 May 2008 (EDT)

?

Hello all. This is my first addition to the talk page, so bear with me. Hyarion, on your user page, you said that you handled most of the technical issue, so I would like to ask about one: The Main Page has remained stagnant for some time. The Featured Article, which in my opinion should change daily, has sat on The Children of Hurin for ages. While this is certainly a noteworthy article, we need to cycle through more material. Also, the featued quote has not changed for some time.

Since there is no way to 'edit' the Main Page that I can see, I am wondering if there is a way I could update this main page (or anyone could). I would love to do it--its right up my alley--but I recognize that I am fairly new to the site, so someone more experianced might have to handle it.

Merge

Hey Hyarion, I've set up a vote on the One Wiki to Rule them All for the proposed merge; but first i think users should register their intention to vote. So could you get your contributors to go over there, sign up and register. Thanks!--KingAragorn 07:33, 23 May 2008 (EDT)

Hey "King Aragorn" (funny, I just wrote something on that on our Aragorn II article), I've registered, but it's an uneditable page. I can only view source, but not edit. Oh, and you typoed it "Tolien Gateway". -- Ederchil 07:44, 23 May 2008 (EDT)

Beetje stront in de ogen, Ed? From the 1st June 2008 - 30th June 2008 you will be able to vote on this page. Nog ff wachten dus! ~ Earendilyon 08:36, 23 May 2008 (EDT)

"First however users must register their intention to vote, this must be done so before 12:00am 1st June 2008. To qualify for registration you must be a registered user of either 'One Wiki to Rule them All' or 'Tolkien Gateway'". -- Ederchil 08:56, 23 May 2008 (EDT)

Ah, ok, I see: I'm the one with stront in z'n ogen :-( But why merge? Why don't we just buy 51% of their shares? Or compete them out of the market? ;-) ~ Earendilyon 15:09, 23 May 2008 (EDT)

It seems the idea of the merge annoyed some of the Wikia staff, now they're aparantely spotlighting the One Wiki and today they've heavily changed or even deleted loads of stuff that I've worked on since I arrived! GRRR --KingAragorn 11:41, 5 June 2008 (EDT)

I noticed that too, what a shame. It's almost comical that they ignored the wiki until there were any talks of leaving, at which point they realized they'd be losing money so they now have all of their employees pretending to be active contributors. If there are any templates they've deleted that TG doesn't have let me know and we can see about creating them here as I'm sure we could use more. What is the point of a Tolkien-specific wiki if they start merging everything into a few major articles like Wikipedia?

Anyway, we're moving past it, they are not worth the time as we have a lot of upcoming things to focus on here. Speaking of one, what do you think about the new skin we're working on? Oh and regarding being an admin: right now we already have a pretty high admin to user ratio but we will definitely be needing more as the wiki continues to grow quite fast and I've been watching all of your work on the One Wiki and that certainly won't be ignored. --Hyarion 16:45, 5 June 2008 (EDT)

Hi, I'm likely to visit and contribute to both sites from now on, and I'd like to move my 'stuff' over here today. Regarding the skin which is in development, I think it's brilliant and it would be great to become the default site skin; however personally I prefer to use the monobook - speaking of which I've been trying to make it more like the One Wiki style in my personal settings, but is it possible to have the same logo or would it have to be a completely new skin? Also would you like me to move my bot over here too? I'm sure it could be put to good use!--KingAragorn 17:08, 5 June 2008 (EDT)

Monobook is definitely a good choice as well, the clutter of a fancy skin can sometimes get in the way when editing. I'll see what we can do about the logo as the Monobook one looks pretty bad (it is meant to be a wax stamp). Helpful bots are more than welcome here, I'm sure we could put it to good use as well. Thanks for your input, it's nice to have you around. --Hyarion 17:27, 5 June 2008 (EDT)

Categorizing people, revisited

Exactly how I would have done it, great work! --Hyarion 12:36, 24 May 2008 (EDT)

Use of Copyrighted Artwork

Hi Hyarion

Some time ago you contacted me about using some of my artwork for this wiki and I initially said yes. However, and after a while, I emailed you requesting you let me know in advance before further use of my artwork, so I could decide which versions you can use and which artwork cannot be displayed outside specific websites. You never got back to me.
Now, and by pure fluke, I stumble upon this wiki and I find you have used my artwork once again, without requesting permission... and I'm far from happy. Could you, or whoever is in charge of this, please contact me ASAP so we can solve the problem? Regards, Breogán.

Hi Breogan, it's an honor to have you here. Unfortunately it looks like I did not receive the email mentioned, I'm extremely sorry about that; please let us know which illustrations you would like taken down and we will tag them for removal immediately. Thanks for your time and your contributions to the Tolkien community. --Hyarion 22:00, 28 May 2008 (EDT)

I will be uploading new versions of some of this artwork, don't know when but it will be soon, so if you want I can let you know when the new versions are available and which ones can be used on this site.

Also, you never mentioned the images would be displayed full-sized. I specifically requested you use smaller versions of my artwork and link people to my DA site for the full-size (larger version) of the image. Since you didn't received that email I sent you, could you please make sure the full-size images are removed as well?

Please, do not misunderstand my requests. I am glad Tolkien Gateway is interested in my artwork, and I'm happy to have it displayed here, I just want to prevent further misunderstandings and problems. So, I guess that if in the future you want to upload new versions of the artwork to be removed, or add future pieces, you only need to contact me and I will send you the requested artwork in the required format.

Thanks in advance for your cooperation. It's a pity you never received that email because it would now save us a lot of time :) Breogán 10:09, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

"Finally, and since you are using my artwork, why am I not listed here? -> http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Images :)" - I'm working on it, it needs a makeover. It's not a complete list. Yet. It was based on an older version of this category, but several galleries were missing from that list. Not anymore. -- Ederchil 14:16, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

The images you requested have been removed. The few left were at the same resolution as your DA gallery so I've removed them as well. We'll be adding to our image regulations that any of your illustrations not uploaded by you is to be deleted immediately. If there are any images you would like displayed here feel free to upload them in your preferred resolution.

I'm still wondering where that email went and I did find one in the incorrect folder from 8/21/07 which requested the removal of a few illustrations, sorry about that. Although it looks like there is yet another email I'm missing as it didn't mention the removal of a lot of the other images and didn't mention the smaller resolution requirement. If you don't get a reply from me within 24 hours feel free to send a follow-up as the last thing I want to do is ignore someone. Thanks for your time and sorry for the inconvenience. --Hyarion 15:39, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

Thanks a million, Hyarion :) Ok, I can upload the images with the required resolution, but what about the links? Will I have to link them back to the relevant pages or do you want me to upload them onto an specific gallery and you can take it from there? I would very much prefer if you were to link them, since I have little experience with Wikis when it comes to editing.

Don't worry about the email. The problem is solved now, and I will send you a follow-up email from now on if I don't hear from you :) Breogán 15:59, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

Anytime :) You're welcome to just upload the images, we can handle the rest. While any filename will do, we do tend to stick with "Breogán - Title of image". We can add this later, but if you like, adding "{{breogán}}" to the image summary when you upload it will include Template:Breogán which will automatically categorize and include your name, official website, etc. Thanks! --Hyarion 16:08, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

We probably need to tweak on the template, then. "For a full sized version of this image, see DA" or something. -- Ederchil 01:43, 3 June 2008 (EDT)

Thanks guys :) I will leave the template-tweaking to you. I am finishing the last illustration for the book, so as soon as it's done, I will start uploading the images. Thanks again. Breogán 10:13, 3 June 2008 (EDT)

Ok, I have just found MORE of my work that has been displayed here without my permission. YOu know, guys, you can't just go around grabbing images and using them without getting in touch with their author. The concepts used are for a game project and should not be used without requesting permission. Hyarion, please, drop me a line (I have already emailed you regarding this)Breogán 13:14, 17 July 2008 (EDT)

Help

hi, i'm new here. i looked at your user page and i thought you did a good job. i, on the other hand have no idea how to do any of that stuff - guilty of never having my own webpage before :( - so can you tell me how to do that stuff??? Balrog Slayer 11:00PM 5/28/08

Hey Balrog Slayer, welcome to TG! The layout I'm using can be rather confusing, but you should be able to edit my userpage and copy/paste it into yours, then change the information. If you need any help with that just let me know and I'd be happy to lend a hand. We look forward to seeing more of you around here :) --Hyarion 13:08, 30 May 2008 (EDT)

Name

Hey I am worried about creating an actual page for myself because I am afraid it might cause users who click on Ælfwine to come to my page instead of the character's page. Could you please give me your advice? Ælfwine228 16:34, 31 May 2008 (EDT)

Hello Ælfwine, no need to worry about that as your page is located at User:Ælfwine and the character's page is located at Ælfwine, searching for "Ælfwine" will display the character's page and not your user page. Don't mind Ederchil, Ælfwine is a perfectly acceptable name :) Thanks for your recent contributions! --Hyarion 16:42, 31 May 2008 (EDT)

Extension

Hi Hyarion! I was wondering what you think of the idea of a page with a map on it, which links to specific places; I made one on the One Wiki and it's found here. However at the moment the TG doesn't have the Image Map extension. So what do you think of having something similar here? We could also have different maps for different times in Middle-earth's history.-- KingAragorn talk contribs edits email 06:45, 7 June 2008 (EDT)

Help section

I'm reading the "Help" section, and quite frankly, it's not helping much if you pretend you're a newb. May I propose specific pages like "Categorizing", "Linking", "Biographies of real persons", "Biographies of characters", "Places", "Games", "Words", "Images", et cetera in the Help namespace? Because abons creating articles "En is an Elvish word for 'of the'" just hurt my eyes, and we can't expect people to follow our lay-out if we compress it all to a couple of unorganized pages like this or this. -- Ederchil 06:53, 7 June 2008 (EDT)

Tolkien News

Greetings !

I was checking the "To-Do list" and this came to my attention:

"Decide on a slogan for TolkienNews.net. And maybe a new title? Tolkien Times?"

How about bringing some news into TolkienNews? :) Tolkien Times sounds good, but the last article there is from December2007. If updated more often, I think the site would be (even more) awesome, since it's one of the few (on Tolkien) who have RSS News Feed (basically it's TolkienNews, TheOneRing and Elfenomeno who are accurate and have RSS...at least that's what I've found so far).

Hi Þelma! Yes, the Tolkien News development has been lacking as we have been working on integrating the news system into the wiki so anyone can post news, it will be done this summer and then we will start back up with posting all of the Tolkien news again. Thanks for your input :) --Hyarion 12:21, 14 June 2008 (EDT)

FA Nominee template

Just something Ambartur/Quidon came up with: A template to make people aware the article is a FA nominee. So I made one. Fine with you? -- Ederchil 04:11, 8 July 2008 (EDT)

I installed the template, if a little sloppily. Hey, I haven't done this alot. But the tags are in the three FA nom articles, and they work.--Theoden1 10:24, 8 July 2008 (EDT)

Bolding text

I was editing the Dagnir article, and the 'code' used to bold the article's name was different than I have seen, is that the way it should be done? Kind of a dumb question, but I didnt see you on the chat, I probably would have forgotten.--Quidon88 21:03, 11 July 2008 (EDT)

<b>This</b> is old. All the apostrophes is modern wiki syntax. All that infobox puzzling is almost starting to turn me into a programmer. Almost. -- Ederchil 13:09, 12 July 2008 (EDT)

Cite extension

It doesn't seem to work. Could you pleeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase install Cite/Cite extension? It's certainly better than any of the methods we now use. -- Ederchil 13:09, 12 July 2008 (EDT)

It is at the top of my list of extensions to install. To install it we needed to get PHP5 and upgrade the MediaWiki engine. We upgraded the server and PHP and now all that is left is to upgrade MW which will be finished shortly, then the Cite extension is easy. I've been a little behind due to work but I should be back into the swing of things shortly. :) --Hyarion 01:29, 13 July 2008 (EDT)

One of the artists here :)

Hello there :)
I just discovered that a couple of the honey-bunnies here were kind enough to make a page for me and upload some of my art, and that at some point you'd taken the trouble to edit it (thank you, to all three!). So I just added a few newer pieces - I hope that's okay.
But I also managed to make a goof on the first upload, so I'm afraid it'll need deleting - I think I marked it for deletion properly... Argh.
I thought it might be a big arrogant if I added my own pics to articles, but if any of them are any use - please feel free. And if you have any articles lacking illustrations let me know. I have quite a few of the little buggers, plus I'm currently working on some Silmarillion things (including an 'Annatar').
Soni (Alcorn-hender) xx
Bohwe 04:35, 20 July 2008 (EDT)

Hi Bohwe! It's an honor to have you here as I've really admired the illustrations you've done, even the "simplistic" sketch cards seem to come to life. No worries on the first upload, I've already removed it. I'll definitely see if we can get more of your illustrations included in the articles, as the more fans we can introduce to your work the better. The more minor the character/place the much more difficult it is finding artists who have illustrated it, so Silmarillion subjects like Annatar would be fantastic. We're in the process of listing all of our articles which we can't find illustrations for, I'll let you know as soon as that list is finished. We really appreciate all you've done for the Tolkien community and we're looking forward to working with you more in the future :) If I can help with anything at all just let me know and I would be happy to help. --Hyarion 13:51, 20 July 2008 (EDT)

Thanks so much! :) Annatar is almost finished, I'll see if I can upload him later on. There may be an Erestor soon as well, time permitting. Thanks again. --Bohwe 12:33, 21 July 2008 (EDT)

Oh, ps - I don't know if I was just being blind or daft, but I couldn't find this wiki included on wikia.com. Is it listed there too? It's better than some of the others I saw there... Ahem. Bohwe

I've uploaded the Annatar pic and added it to the article, hope that's okay. Not sure if the placement is right, or even if the image is what you wanted, but maybe it'll do for now. :) Bohwe 02:09, 23 July 2008 (EDT)

1. This wiki is not associated with wikia.com.

2. I've improved Annatar.

3. As for an article that could use a good main pic, I'd say Glorfindel. I saw one of him on your site, and I love it. -- Ederchil 03:04, 23 July 2008 (EDT)

Featured Quote

Attention all Arda: A new Featured Quote has been born. And yes, this is a world changing event (sorta). Hopefully, you will find this first electee acceptable to our high standard, O Vala...--Theoden1 17:49, 4 August 2008 (EDT)

Hi

Hi Hyarion, I hope you enjoyed your holiday vacation. There's a few things I need to ask you, so here goes.

I'm sure your aware that Ederchil has been nominated for adminship, I know that you've previously spoken against having more admins, but I think the wiki is now big and active enough to have at least two admins; so will you make him admin when the voting is over? If so make sure you give your own support.

I've recently found dozens of interesting pages that you created a couple of years ago, these pages contain very interesting ideas; but one I think we should start right away is your meetings idea, so maybe if we contact our regular users, select a good time and create a few points of discussion before the meeting, then I think we could really improve this site; so what do you think?

Finally, I've recently changed the Community Portal page, because I think it's a very useful page if it has the right content. Take a look and make sure you add anything that you think I've missed out. Also I think it's worth putting it back on the sidebar, that way people can actually make use of it!

Hi KA! It's good to be back, and it looks like we've had a lot of activity, I have a lot of catching up to do.

I'm aware of Ederchil's nomination and I figured I'd let everyone express their opinions first before I jump in there, plus I'm still trying to find something negative about Eder :) At this point I think it's just a matter of giving everyone time to cast their vote before we make it official.

I think we're just about to the point where we have enough regular editors to make meetings worthwhile, so I'll get started on trying to find a consensus on a day and time. We have a lot of discussions on IRC but I think having everyone on at one time we'll definitely be more efficient for certain discussions which don't work well on talk pages.

The new Community Portal page looks great. Before we didn't really have many "community"-related articles and thus the page wasn't very useful, but I think we're at the point where a page where editors and new-users alike can find more information about TG-related things will be great. We have so many different things going on it can sometimes be difficult to know about or navigate them all and the Community Portal can help with that. I'll see if I can add some things and we'll give some time for others to make some changes and then we'll add a link to it on the menu.

Thanks for your input and all your help, always nice to have you around! --Hyarion 18:38, 6 August 2008 (EDT)

One more question, something I've noticed about this wiki is that it's doesn't email users when pages they watch have been edited, and there seems to be no option to enable this in the preferences; I've found that this is a very good way of making editors return and especially good at draw the attention of users who have not edited in a while. Is it possible for you to enable this or is it because it's a different version of MediaWiki, anyway I don't know but I hope you do. Sorry to ask you to do more work - I know you've got all of those extensions to put here yet - but I think enabling this will keep the site active. Thanks!-- KingAragorn talk contribs edits email 18:23, 7 August 2008 (EDT)

Great idea! You can now set the options in your preferences, although it will default to off. --Hyarion 18:49, 7 August 2008 (EDT)

Just another crazy idea - Portrayal in adaptations

I had this crazy idea for a while now. Since many adaptations don't really have images (radio plays) or are useless witho nly a pic (video games) wouldn't it be great to include short soundfiles? Only problem is I don't know the proper copyright situation. We have Category:Elvish quotes, apparently without any tag. I wanted to check TolkienRadio.com, but it says nothing on copyright and its soundfiles seem to have been shut down. Is this a dream that will stay a dream or can it be realised? -- Ederchil 04:12, 8 August 2008 (EDT)

This one ties in with our video player and it is definitely a good idea, not only for audio but video and even slideshows would be nice; though we don't want to clutter up the article too much. As long as we're only using a small clip from the radio broadcast or audio reading then with fair use we should be fine. Right now everything has to be done manually so I'll work on getting it setup so anyone can upload video and embed it into the page. For now if we want though we could always just upload the mp3 like we do with Ardamir's pronunciations, however that's not ideal as we really want everyone to be able to play it within the article and not need an external player. I'll add the fair use tag to those Elvish quotes. --Hyarion 13:16, 8 August 2008 (EDT)

My idea was to do some short, iconic phrases. Maybe a box with "ardamir-sized" soundfiles on the right. I'm still figuring out how to do it; I had a course Conversation Analysis two years ago and it involved the software needed, but I can't find it anymore. I only remember MP3myMP3, but there was a second too. -- Ederchil 15:24, 8 August 2008 (EDT)

CoH Alan Lee

I was wondering if it is ok to upload Alan Lee's illustrations for The Children of Húrin book. I know we have this and this, but do we have permission to upload the rest of them? Because I know a certain picture of Túrin that would be just PERFECT for his article. And not just that, but many others who are absolutely amazing. ~~ Þelma 12:04, 10 August 2008 (EDT)

Uploading every single illustration from the book might be pushing fair use a bit, but if we can find a place for some of the illustrations in articles then I definitely think it would be worth it. I wish Alan Lee would get a website up with all his illustrations like John Howe and Ted Nasmith, a lot of the illustrations I've seen online are from less than stellar scans that don't do the work justice. --Hyarion 15:31, 10 August 2008 (EDT)

Yes, I wished he had a site too, so that we won't go "hunting" for a decent quality pic from him in all the corners of the net. :) And speaking of corners, here's what I found : http://www.endorion.org/books/childrenofhurind.html . It's in Russian, but I think you'll find the quality of those scans far better than that of others. Also, there are different sizes for each illustration, so we can decide on which size suits us best. And if you ask me what we need most from his CoH illustrations, then that would be the picture of Túrin from the cover, which, in my opinion, has become emblematic for the hero. So it would fit really nice on our article. Other than that, I think it is your decision, since you know best how far can we go with the uploading. :) Have a great day! :) ~~ Þelma 06:27, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

Ah, I thought we were referring to the sketches at the beginning of each of the chapters in the book. The link contains the wallpapers released by HarperCollins and can be found on the official site, definitely feel free to upload any of those that already haven't been uploaded. --Hyarion 12:05, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

Those sketches can be very useful. CoH has Amon Obel, Ibûn and Khîm, I believe some of the Outlaws as well. I don't have any other illustrated editions, but those can be ideal for the lesser-drawn things. -- Ederchil 13:07, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

Pronounced Articles

Hi, In regards to the outcome to the pronounced articles discussion, I tried making a template which uses the audio player and could be copy and pasted into the existing pronounced template. However this wiki doesn't seem to have a lot of Paser functions, the specific one need is the {{filepath:Dagor Bragollach.mp3}} one; so I think this will make it a lot easier changing over to the audio player for all of our existing pronounced articles (we could then use <audio>{{filepath:{{{1}}}</audio> in the template). Thanks!-- KingAragorn talk contribs edits email 08:42, 18 August 2008 (EDT)

Meeting

You can't be there? Well, I'll try to fill in. Just one question: what exactly did you mean by Marketing TG? Placing links to good articles on Wikipedia? Or just getting us on more lists of links? -- Hyarion 20:56, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Talk about thinking alike :) I'm just thinking getting the word out about TG as a large majority of the fans still haven't heard of us. I'll try to expand more on the meeting's talk page. Thanks for filling in! --Hyarion 20:56, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

About the meeting - you said you would log it. Do you make the special channel for it too, or do I have to figure it out? -- Ederchil(Talk/Contribs/Edits) 16:45, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

To avoid confusion at the last meeting I simply used an administrative command to force the editors to join #Wiki (the command to join is "/join #wiki"), however since I'm not there it would probably be easiest to just have it in the main lobby, I'm logging both so either one works. --Hyarion 16:49, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Disclaimers bug

Some wiki code is leaking out onto the Main page, and other pages as well. It follows a 'Disclaimers' line now appearing. —Unsigned comment byTheoden1 (talk • contribs).

Yea, thanks, unfortunately we're still working out some bugs from the upgrade. --Hyarion 07:44, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

The Necromancer....

Thanks for the message...

I have been involved in Tolkien Studies for a long time (not s long as many, as I only began when I was 13 or 14, which would only give me about 10 years of dedicated studies (where I had at least some concerted study during a year), but the interest in JRRT and his son's contributions to his works has been something of a 30 year affair.

I realize that my Article on the Necromancer of Dol Goldûr has yet to have any sources cited, but that will change soon. It is a collection of older scribblings on the subject, and the books I made them from no longer conform to the books I am using now (The LotR material was taken from a three book paperback set, and I now have a 1965 folio printing (The Big Red book - actually, I had it then, but I have always had a rather rigid rule about books... If I know them to be valuable, I will seek out a less valuable edition to use as a study guide. My parents were both rather academics and taught me this).

I do intend to put the references from the Tale of Years (Appendix B) into the article today.

More recent additions to the article come from some materials that I have found on the Encyclopedia of Arda (another excellent source that i am working to help expand).

On another note, do you kow if anyone has written any fan fiction that would be like Plutarch's parallel Lives, or Livy's History of Early Rome?

I have been thinking about doing a Fan fiction that would be detailed accounts of the various Wars of Númenórë & Gondor from the PoV of scholars attached to the armies (very much more like Polybios was to the Armies of Rome during the Punic Wars with Carthage/Hannibal)... I would love to make it a collaboration, but any of those collaborating would need to read at least some Livy, Plutarch and Polybios in order to get a feel for what a propagandist/military historian's works would be like.

This sort of work would be especially entertaining for the North Kingdom of Arnor and its breakup into Arthedain, Rhudaur and Cardolan.

If you are more interested, I can set up better forms of communication and get you copies of the appropriate texts (being several millennia old, they are all in the public domain)

Matthew Bailey
P.S. Great to have finally become part of a group of others who are as interested as I in Middle Earth.

Hi Matthew, thanks for your work on Dol Guldur and welcome to TG! The other editors and I will read through it and see if we can help cite and improve the additional information as well. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with any fan fiction so I'm afraid I can't be of any assistance on that front. If you have any other questions feel free to let me know, I see your Forum article and will be responding to it shortly, keep up the great work and we look forward to seeing you around in the future :) --Hyarion 16:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

About page creations

Hey Hyarion, I was wondering if there was a way I could see how many pages I've created? --Dwarf Lord 18:27, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Not that I'm aware of, a rather ugly way of doing so might be to view your contributions and search (Ctrl+F) for " N " to signify a new page. --Hyarion 20:28, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

My Apologies

I offer my sincere apologies for not being at your meetings, Hyarion. With the constant attention to college, and other stuff I just haven't the time to make it to them. Though I tend to be rather elusive, I do care very much for what goes on here at TG (considering how much time I've put into it), will try to make it when I can. --Dwarf Lord 05:33, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

No worries DL :) That's why we post the transcripts, the meetings just give some of us a chance to chat and we don't want to leave out those who can't make it. We do tend to make minor standard decisions during the meetings so if you ever notice anything in the transcript you disagree with or would like to add to feel free to just add it to the meeting's talk page. I feel lucky now, I don't have to start university for another two weeks. --Hyarion 06:09, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok mate, I will let ya know. Yea school is a pain. I actually am going to finish the semester, and quit the major I'm in now cus the work is so overwhelming. --Dwarf Lord 13:23, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Hello!

Hi Hyarion, nice to meet you! Thank you very much for the visit and for the message. I'm already familiar with Wikipedia, so I think I'll have no difficulty. I hope that I will enjoy in contributing to this wonderfull project. See you. --Finrod Felagund 13:38, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Finrod, it's great to have you around! We're have our weekly meeting coming up tomorrow on IRC, if you have some free time feel free to stop by. Have a good weekend and we look forward to seeing you around. --Hyarion 15:07, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Family tree

You know everyone has a family tree, can you please tell me how to do that. Elegost 19:12, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Since this hasn't been answered yet, I'll just barge in Hyar's talk and make myself at home. Elegost, we use Template:Familytree for that. Not everyone has a family tree, and some still got an old one. It takes some "show Preview", but after a while, it should be easy. You can update old ones if you like, or add new ones to articles that don't have one yet. Please consider practicing in our Sandbox first, though. -- Ederchil(Talk/Contribs/Edits) 17:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Adrahil I, "Prince of Dor-en-Ernil" ?

Hi, I'm trying to sort out the article on Adrahil I (specifically whether he should be regarded as Prince of Dol Amroth, since the information is contradictory) and I see you added the reference to "Prince of Dor-en-Ernil" [6] but I can't find any information on this title. Can you remember where you found it? --Aule the Smith 17:43, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, I think I've gotten to the bottom of it. Sorry about that. --Aule the Smith 18:01, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Nationstates

Hey, this is a great game: nationstates.net. Create a nation and join my region "The Real Middle Earth" invite your friends and if you need help, I'm here. Also, how do you get those things on your page that say like "This user believe the entwives are lost" or "has advanced lore"?

help

how do you get one of those boxes in some of the artciles on the right, that say like name, location, etc.? —Unsigned comment byBreragor (talk • contribs).

Hi Breragor. Those are infoboxes, For instance to add a Location Infobox just go to the Template:Location and copy the code in the "Usage" section and add the data to the left of the variables. Keep up the great work! --Hyarion 04:56, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi again. Some other tips: wiki's can't host "foreign" images, the have to be uploaded first. See Help: Images. Also, when you link [[Theoden (17th king of Rohan]], it gives you a link to the nonexistent article "Theoden (17th king of Rohan". The article's name is "Théoden". Though it's not really needed for infoboxes, saying he's the 17th King of Rohan can be done like by so-called "pipe-linking": [[Théoden|Theoden (17th King of Rohan)]]. The pipe is the symbol that's (usually) in the uppercase backslash. And third, mind who you call "Prince". Just because he's the son of the King of Rohan doesn't make him the "Prince of Rohan" - similarly, Imrahil wasn't the son of the King of Dol Amroth, and Prince Charles isn't the Prince of England, but of Wales. -- Ederchil(Talk/Contribs/Edits) 08:09, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

The Two Towers Game

The Two Towers game for the GBA is one of my favourite games. It has an extensive sollection of items you can find around the adventure, and I was thinking about adding a page of them, making templates to easily add them, and it could also work with it's sequel, which to my knowledge uses a similar system. In the template, there would be place for a picture, the name and the statistics boost the item gives. Am I allowed to try to do this (I'm not sure if I could be able to make the template, but I can surely fill in the information), or is this to trivial to be added to the wiki? Grond 11:55, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Grond. There is definitely a lot of information on the game we can add to the wiki. A good start might be to take the section in this article and expand it into its own article. I don't think an item in the game would warrant its own article, but the GBA article could list various items and images/descriptions of them. Thanks for your help! --Hyarion 22:06, 13 December 2008 (UTC)